After Christmas Blues

I always feel let down to some degree right after Christmas, whether or not I had a good holiday. If I had a good Christmas, I want the feelings to go on, but if my Christmas sucked, I feel down because there's no hope left for recovering the holiday for that year and it's another long year before I get another chance. I get depressed to see the colorful lights being taken down and neighborhoods being returned to their former drab darkness.

I'm also bummed because after the long wait for the holiday season through the long endless southern summer, the season is over all too soon and now I can see the return of the next miserable summer looming on the horizon, which usually arrives sooner, rather than later in the south.

People have long complained about the rushing of the holiday season: Halloween decorations in August, Christmas stuff up in September. This has never bothered me, because it signals to me that summer will soon be gone for another year.

But it seems as if the retail industry is now rushing the after-Christmas holidays -- and I don't mean New Year's Day, which is, after all, the last hurrah of the holiday season. No, I mean Valentine's Day. It used to be that one didn't see Valentine's stuff out until after New Year's Day, or, at least not until after Christmas was over. This year, however, I began seeing Valentine's shit in the stores at least two weeks before Christmas. I've decided I hate this shit as much or more than some people hate the rushing of Halloween and Christmas stuff. I've no problem with the crap being put out in January, but no earlier.

What's next? Will we see 4th of July stuff being sold on New Year's Day sometime soon in the future? I'm surprised they don't do it already, as department stores have traditionally started selling bathing suits in their stores directly after Christmas.

Thoughts?